Tag: Spacemen 3

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: No Joy’s Jasamine White-Gluz and Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom Team Up for an Atmospheric and Eerie Single off Collaborative EP

Over the past year, I’ve written quite a bit about the Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based shogeaze duo No Joy. Interestingly, the duo, which is comprised of primary songwriter Jasamine White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd can trace their origins to when White-Gluz, who was then living in Los Angeles began collaborating with the Montreal-based Lloyd via email — and their collaboration eventually lead to White-Gluz returning to Montreal, so that they could play their first show, with Husker Du’s Grant Hart. As the story goes, after that show, White and Gluz continued collaborating, playing a number of shows locally, including with Best Coast, who’s frontwoman Bethany Cosentino became an early champion of the duo.
Building upon the growing buzz surround the Montreal-based duo, White-Gluz and Lloyd signed to renowned indie label Mexican Summer, who released their debut 7 inch single “No Summer”/”No Joy,” an effort that allowed them to book their own national headlining tour with Katy Goodman’s, La Sera. The 7 inch quickly sold out, and by November 2010, the duo released their full-length debut Ghost Blonde to critical praise from the likes of Pitchfork, AllMusic.com, The New York Times, Brooklyn Vegan, The Guardian and others. No Joy followed that with the British release of the “Hawaii” 7 in, a release that featured a remix of “Indigo Child,” by Stereolab‘s Tim Gane, which they supported with a UK tour with  Surfer Blood, an opening spot in London for Wire, and an appearance at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival.
The  members of No Joy spent the better part of 2011 touring across North America — and it included a busy SXSW schedule, a tour with Vivian Girls, and a co-headling tour with Marnie Stern with whom they released a split single, which featured No Joy’s cover of the Shangri-La’s “He Cried.” Since then, the band has released 2012’s Negaverse EP and Wait to Pleasure, 2013’s Pastel and Pass Out EP, 2015’s More Faithful, 2016’s Drool Sucker, the first of a planned series of EPs and last year’s Creep, which was released through the band’s new label Grey Market Records.

Interestingly, this year finds No Joy’s White-Gluz collaborating with Spacemen 3’s and E.A.R.’s Sonic Boom (a.k.a. Pete Kember), and although the collaborators can’t accurately remember how they met or when they met, but what they do clearly recall is that the idea of collaborating together was brought up in an email exchange back in 2015. At the time, No Joy had finishing touring to support their third album More Faithful, an album that the duo has considered one of their most difficult and demanding efforts they’ve worked on together, and White-Gluz was eager to try new ideas and do something different. “No Joy functioned as a four-piece ‘rock band’ for so long,” White-Gluz explains in press notes. “I wanted to pursue something solo where I collaborated with someone else who could help me approach my songs from a completely different angle. Pete is a legend and someone I’ve admired for a long time. Being able to work with him on this was incredible.”

Initially, the collaboration began as a bit of exploration between two friends, who admired each other’s work with each one passing songs back and and forth with White-Gluz writing and producing songs in her hometown of Montreal and Kember writing, arranging and producing in Portugal. The end result was their collaborative EP together — four tracks that reportedly walk the tightrope between electronica, trip hop and experimental noise.  As White-Gluz says in press notes, “I wrote some songs that were intended for a full band and handed them off to Pete, who helped transform them. I barely knew how to use MIDI so I was just throwing him these experiments I was working on and he fine-tuned my ideas. There are barely any guitars on this album, because I was focused on trying to find new ways to create sounds.”

Now, as you may recall, the EP’s first single “Obsession” featured a Giorgio Moroder meets Evil Heat-era Primal Scream-like production featuring shimmering and undulating club friendly synths and a mesmerizing, trance-like groove. “Slorb,” the EP’s latest single is a slow-burning and atmospheric track which features a minimalist production consisting of wobbling synths and electronics, brief bursts of guitar, and skittering beats within a highly unusual song structure — and interestingly enough, the song finds the collaborators nodding at experimental pop, ambient electronica and noise pop simultaneously. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Beach House Return with an Ambitious Yet Introspective New Single

Over the past handful of years, I’ve written quite a bit about the the Baltimore-based indie rock act Beach House, and as you may recall, the act, which is comprised of primary members and songwriters Victoria Legrand (organ, vocals) and Alex Scally (guitar, vocals) have released a a number of critically and commercially successful albums, including 2015’s Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars, which were written and recorded within a two-and-a-half year period between 2012-2014 — and while being individual efforts, they’re meant to be viewed as closely related companion pieces, as metaphorically being two sides of the same coin, as they built upon similar themes and a related, overall sound centered around sparse and atmospheric arrangements of organ, guitar and Legrand’s ethereal vocals.

Much like countless bands before them, Legrand and Scally have written and recorded a large number of songs throughout their career, some of which have been played live or released that for whatever reason just didn’t quite fit their album-based material. Over the years, some of those songs have proven to be increasingly difficult to find and listen to, and to accommodate their fans, they released B-Sides and Rarities, a 14 track compilation of songs that they’ve recorded and released that just didn’t make their albums, and two previously unreleased singles “Chariot” and “Baseball Diamond,” recorded during the Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars sessions. As a music journalist and fan, B-side compilations can offer a revealing look into a band’s creative and editorial processes as they write and record an album. Interestingly, according to a lengthy statement written by the band that appears on Sub Pop’s website, the B-sides album “felt like a good step for us. It helped us clean the creative closet, put the past the bed and start anew.” 

The Baltimore-based act’s seventh full-length album, the symbolically apt titled 7 is slated for a May 11, 2018 release through Sub Pop Records in North America, Bella Union Records in Europe and Mistletone Records in Australia and New Zealand, and as the album found the act working with Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom (a.k.a. Peter Kember) as a producer — but not in the traditional sense, as he helped the band in their attempts to start anew by shedding conventions and ensuring that the album’s material would be fresh, alive and protected from the tendency of overproduction and perfectionism. Additionally, the album finds Legrand and Scally working with their most recent live drummer James Barone, who as the band says helped “keep rhythm at the center of a lot of these songs.” 

As Legrand and Scally explain “Throughout the process of recording 7, our goal was rebirth and rejuvenation. We wanted to rethink old methods and shed some self-imposed limitations. In the past, we often limited our writing to parts that we could perform live. On 7, we decided to follow whatever came naturally. As a result, there are some songs with no guitar, and some without keyboard. There are songs with layers and production that we could never recreate live, and that is exciting to us. Basically, we let our creative moods, instead of instrumentation, dictate the album’s feel.

“In the past, the economics of recording have dictated that we write for a year, go to the studio, and record the entire record as quickly as possible. We have always hated this because by the time the recording happens, a certain excitement about older songs has often been lost. This time, we built a ‘home’ studio, and began all of the songs there.  Whenever we had a group of 3-4 songs that we were excited about, we would go to a ‘proper’ recording studio and finish recording them there. This way, the amount of time between the original idea and the finished song was pretty short.” 

As the act admits, the societal sense of instability, uncertainty and chaos was deeply influential. “Looking back, there is quite a bit of chaos happening in these songs, and a pervasive dark field that we had little control over. The discussions surrounding women’s issues were a constant source of inspiration and questioning. The energy, lyrics and moods of much of this record grew from ruminations on the roles, pressures and conditions that our society places on women, past and present.” They go on to say that in a general sense, “we are interested by the human mind’s (and nature’s) tendency to create forces equal and opposite to those present. Thematically, this record often deals with the beauty that arises in dealing with darkness; the empathy and love that grows from collective trauma; the place one reaches when they accept rather than deny.

Now, as you may recall, last month Beach House released “Lemon Glow,” 7’s first single, a jangling and  atmospheric track centered around Legrand’s etheral vocals that possessed a subtle, cosmic glow. Interestingly, the album’s second and latest single “Dive” is arguably one of the more expansive tracks they’ve released in recent memory as it features a lengthy, atmospheric section centered around Legrand’s vocals, organ and gently padded drumming before quickly shifting into a buzzing power chord-based coda that has the band leaning towards a much more ambitious approach — while focused on deeply introspective lyrics. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Psychedelic and Lynchian-like Visuals for Norma’s “S.A.D.”

Largely inspired by NEU! and Faust, as well as Spiritualized and Spacemen 3, the Stockholm, Sweden-based trio Norma, comprised Erik Vallin, Love Martinsen, and Petter Bendelin formed in a living room in 2007, watching David Lynch movies while experimenting with pedal steel guitars, vintage organs and synthesizers. As the story goes, after a while, the trio started rehearsing in a bomb shelter and eventually developed a bigger, heavier sound, which wound up on their debut effort Book of Norma. Several years later, the band followed that up with their 2013 sophomore effort, The Invisible Mother. Over the past few years, they’ve developed a reputation for being deliberate — and over a decade since their formation, the band will be releasing their third, full-length album sometime in 2018. 

“S.A.D,” the yet-untitled album’s first single features a prerequisite, chugging motorik groove paired with shimmering, pedal effected guitars and a soaring hook to create a song that reminds me quite a bit of Join the Dots-era TOY — but interestingly enough, the song is both about seasonal affective disorder and a character that the band has dubbed Neil, a figure that appears during the darkest season, and attempts to thwart you as you go about your daily life. As the band explains, “. . . We probably all have our personal devils, wherever we want them or not, it’s just about learning how to live with them. It may be quite difficult to get a daily life working as it is and it will not be easier to discuss economics, logistics or food when Neil creeps along your spine and says he’s going to shoot you in your leg.”

Edited by Frederick Stewart Holm and featuring photography by the band and Najda von Bahr with scenography, costumes and makeup by Emila Esping, the recently recently video for “S.A.D.” follows Neil, a vagabond-like character as he travels the countryside in a custom built jalopy to the kindergarten where he entertains kids as a clown/entertainer. Eventually, he disappears into a dream where he floats among planets, fishes and laser lights in a Lynchian and psychedelic nightmare. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Trond Fagernes (vocals, guitar), Peter Gudim Marberg (bass), Håvard Haga (guitar), Bjørn Marius Kristiansen (touring drummer) and Ola J. Kyrkjeeide (studio drummer/live drummer), the Oslo, Norway-based indie rock band Mayflower Madame formed during the winter of 2010-2011. They started rehearsing in a desolate industrial building, where they shared the space with a carwash company. And amidst the lonely and gritty surroundings, the band quickly came upon an appropriately dark, post-punk sound, and then recorded a four song demo, which quickly won them national attention.  By August 2011, the Oslo-based indie rock band won the Unsigned Band of the Week on one of Norway’s biggest radio stations, which then lead to regular airplay on national radio — with the band spending 2012 building upon their growing profile with local and national touring, and writing material for their first official release.

In 2013, Mayflower Madame was selected to play a showcase featuring Scandinavia’s best, up-and-coming band at that year’s Norwegian Wood Festival, which was headlined by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and My Bloody Valentine and they continued a big year by releasing their debut EP Into the Haze, an effort that received attention across the blogosphere. In fact, adding to a growing profile, the Norwegian band opened for renowned neo-psych act Crystal Stilts — and they released an attention-grabbing video for EP title track “Into the Haze” that had been directed by Kenneth Karlstad and was inspired by Expressionist horror films.

In early 2015, the Norwegian indie rock band released “Lovesick” a single that was picked up by Custom Made Music and received Stateside radio airplay and praise from several publications including L.A. Record, who wrote that the single was “powerfully lysergic reverb rock” and The Work Magazine, who wrote that the single was a “loyal homage to the legends of the 60s and a heaping spoonful of UK drone-rock.” The members of the band spent the rest of ’15 writing and recording tracks for their full-length debut Observed in a Dream while touring and playing shows with Disappears, Moon Duo and La Femme — and along with that they toured outside of Scandinavia for the first time.

Mayflower Madame – Lovesick from Mayflower Madame on Vimeo.

The band’s full-length debut, Observed in a Dream was released last year through the band’s own label Night Cult Records throughout the European Union in April and through Custom Made Music throughout North America in June, and the album managed to caught the attention of several internationally known media outlets including Q Magazine, Drowned in Sound, Clash Magazine, Classic Rock Magazine, Louder Than War, Ghettoblaster Magazine, as well as praise in their homeland. Adding to a growing profile, album singles “Lovesick” and “Weightless” received extensive airplay in the US, including several Top 20 and Top 5 rotations on college radio stations.

Mayflower Madame is currently on a North American tour, which includes a stop tonight at Philadelphia‘s Kung Fu Necktie — and you can check out the rest of the tour dates below; however, as they were about to go on tour, the band released a reverb-filled, moody, new single “Drown,” which interestingly enough will further cement their reputation for crafting 80s-inspired post-punk that sounds as though it draws from The Sisters of Mercy, My Bloody Valentine, Spacemen 3 while subtly nodding at classic shoegaze and the 4AD Records sound.

TOUR DATES
4/2 – Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
4/3 – Diabolical Records – Salt Lake City, UT
4/4 – The Manor – Boise, ID
4/5 – Funhouse – Seattle, WA
4/6 – The Cobalt – Vancouver, BC
4/7 – Out From The Shadows Festival @ Tonic – Portland, OR
4/8 – Somos Gallery – Salinas, CA
4/9 – Brick & Mortar Music Hall – San Francisco, CA
4/10 – Complex – Los Angeles, CA
4/11 – Soda Bar – San Diego, CA

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Ironic Visuals for Honeymilk’s “The Nothing New”

Currently, Admund and Nyberg are working on the much-anticipated follow-up to Lean on the Sun — but in the meantime, the duo’s latest single “The Nothing New” is as the band says “could be about finding yourself in an age and situation where the demands that hunt you are increasing; the same that it takes more alcohol to get drunk, it takes great and greater everyday explosions for the static line that life has graduated turned into to be moved. It could also be a pretentious and unclear salute to both Samuel Beckett’s book Murphy or Spacemen 3. Or it could be a very good pop song that means nothing.” Sonically, the song is a breezy and jangling bit of pop that meshes elements of 60s psych pop with Brit Pop (thanks to angular guitars and undulating synths) with an infectious and anthemic hook and ironic lyrics while being both radio and arena rock-friendly.

The recently released music video features the duo of Admund and Nyberg as though they were on a cooking show — but a cooking show in which they spend a great deal of time hanging out and goofing off, before inviting a couple of studio-manufactured, casting call guests to their place. It’s an unusual take on the song but it still manages to capture the irony within the song; however, in this case, the irony seems to be that in a post-modern world everything that possesses earnestness may also be manufactured for you.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially comprised of founding members Marcus Admund (vocals) and Albin Wesley (bass), along with Nikki Nyberg (guitar) and Erik Fritz (drums), the Stockholm, Sweden-based quartet Honeymilk can trace their origins to the formation and eventual breakup of Urmas Planet, a band that featured several members of Honeymilk. And with the release of the Linus Larsson-produced single “It Might Be,” the band quickly received both praise across the blogosphere and radio airplay on several radio stations including Amazing Radio and Oxford College Radio. However, after “It Might Be,” the members of Honeymilk decided to go the DIY route, recording their critically applauded full-length debut effort Lean on the Sun.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few years, you may recall that I’ve written about the band on a couple of occasions including their Brit pop and psych rock-channeling single “A Scene in Between.” Sometime after that single and its subsequent recorded efforts, the band went through a massive lineup change in which the band went from a quartet to a duo featuring the band’s co-founder Marcus Admund (vocals) and Nikki Nyberg (guitar). And with such a massive lineup change, the band went through a radical change of sonic direction as you would hear on their breezy, Vampire Weekend-like synth-based single “Time Will Kill You,” a single that received quite a bit of buzz across the blogosphere and over 140,000 streams on Spotify.

Currently, Admund and Nyberg are working on the much-anticipated follow-up to Lean on the Sun — but in the meantime, the duo’s latest single “The Nothing New” is as the band says “could be about finding yourself in an age and situation where the demands that hunt you are increasing; the same that it takes more alcohol to get drunk, it takes great and greater everyday explosions for the static line that life has graduated turned into to be moved. It could also be a pretentious and unclear salute to both Samuel Beckett’s book Murphy or Spacemen 3. Or it could be a very good pop song that means nothing.” Sonically, the song is a breezy and jangling bit of pop that meshes elements of 60s psych pop with  Brit Pop (thanks to angular guitars and undulating synths) with an infectious and anthemic hook and ironic lyrics while being both radio and arena rock-friendly.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Holy Monitor is an an Athens, Greece-based music collective, who over the course of two self-released digital EPs Aeolus and Golden Light have developed a reputation for blending space rock, shoegaze and ambient music with music that explores ancient Greek mythology and the macro structure of the universe. And as you’ll hear on “Bend The Trees” off Aeolus, their sound might remind some listeners of RIDE, Spaceman 3, TOY,  and others — as undulating and ambient synths are paired with a tight motorik groove, rolling bass lines, buzzing guitars and cooed vocals that float over an equally trippy and ethereal mix.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Auras’ Brit Pop Channelling, New Single

Certainly, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past month, you may recall that I’ve written about the Toronto,ON-based psych rock sextet The Auras.  Comprised of long-time friends longtime friends, Aaron McCoy (drums), Hank Van Harten (bass, […]

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Psychedelic and Colorful, New Video for The Auras’ “Sure Shot”

Comprised of long-time friends longtime friends, Aaron McCoy (drums), Hank Van Harten (bass, vocals), David Zboch Alves (keyboards, vocals), Peter Dasilva (guitar, vocals), Robb Schaede (guitar and vocals) and Dallas Wheeler (guitar, vocals), the Toronto,ON-based sextet […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Shelby Gaudet (vocals, guitar), Amber Kraft (drums, percussion), Christopher Laramee (guitar), Sonia Dickin (bass, vocals), and Elsa Gebremichael (keys and vocals), the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based shoegazer rock quintet of Powder Blue gained international attention […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Taking their name from Vesta, the largest and brightest asteroid in our solar system and nodding to Spacemen 3, The Asteroid No. 4 originally formed as a quartet in Philadelphia, PA; however, by the time the […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Fronted by James Hanna’s latest project, Youth Worship and was born out of Hanna’s love of Spacemen 3, Loop, Dinosaur Jr. and Mudhoney – or in other words, Hanna dreamt of playing power chords through stacks of […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

A Q&A with Secret Colours’ Tommy Evans

When the Chicago, IL-based Secret Colours released their debut, self-titled effort and their sophomore effort Peach last year, they were a sextet, which is highly unusual for most rock bands. But between the after effects of the release of Peach and […]